" . . . displacement and estrangement are at home in these dreamlike surreal zones where horror and destruction come up against beauty, music and sex, where quotidian routine and boredom exist alongside the maddening and unthinkable."—Elisa Gabbert, The New York Times Book Review"In life and on the page, the Palestinian poet Nasser Rabah searches through rubble. In Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece, a new translation of his work that includes writings from the onset of the current war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, he offers, 'There you are, giving a silent sermon over a heap / of the dead and move on, just like when you ask the grocer / for something, and move on.'"—Jennifer Wilson, The New Yorker"Written as he endured the genocidal assault, Rabah's Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece resounds with gripping humanity, as his poems of love, the dead, and an accompanying fierce valuation of life evoke realities that often evade propaganda and the mass media."—Danielle Shi, Zyzzyva"I'm probably a little biased because I've always loved the City Lights Pocket Poets series, but this collection really resonated with me. Rabah leans fully into imagery, and it shows; so many of these poems feel surreal, heartbreaking, and quietly wistful. He has a way of finding beauty in small, everyday moments, and that sensitivity gives the entire collection a vivid, lingering quality. There are so many great poems in this collection, but my favorites are 'Water Thirsty For Water' and 'The Flattery of Air.'"—Molly Ripatti, Social Media Coordinator, Words Without Borders"Poet Nasser Rabah knows how to create an evocative image, with stunning constructions like this: 'We left our fingernails on the prison walls, growing in the dark like a cursed vine.' This collection begins by featuring some of Rabah's shorter work, eventually segueing into lengthier poems; they reveal that he's equally adept at making literary references (including to Mahmoud Darwish and Franz Kafka) and evoking the horrors of war."—Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders"Rabah's poems combine melancholy and erudition; classical grammar, diction, and vocabulary and breezy, colloquial storytelling; Quranic references and a modern sense of humor and horror. There's a formal informality to the verse, a constricted freeness."—Eman Quotah, The Markaz Review"Rabah's lyrics are crucially vital reading for anyone living through wartime. . . . Displaced by ongoing violence within the Gaza Strip, Palestinian poet and novelist Rabah excavates poetic truths from a crushed collective unconscious."—Starred Review, Booklist"Amid the onslaught, Rabah's poems retain their undiminished power to reach across time and space to address you, whether that 'you' refers to his countrymen or himself, the newly dead or the still living, or even the auditor of the book's final lines: 'O Gaza, accursed, beloved, deranged, oppressed, outcast, / enchanted, forgotten, mentioned a thousand times / in the Book of War, you're not the Goddess of the Dead, / nor is your book called Sorrow of the Country.'"—Christopher Spaide, Lit Hub"Nasser Rabah's beautiful poems offer a generosity of close attention on a dignified life. A life lived alongside, against, and in opposition to the brutalities of violent occupation, but a life teeming with dignity and worthwhile affections, small and large.This, to say nothing of how the poems sing on a line level, with a rich music. 'I was sand gently grazed by grass woven through me' hums with a vivid clarity, such small and sweet songs run throughout this collection, which is a massive achievement."—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension"Majestic, magnificent, searing, stunning—and as close to a reader as the heart-shaped cake broken in half for the children. Nasser Rabah is a poet so rich with life and visionary lyricism, he should never have to suffer such brutal injustices done to his people. With gratitude to the translators for their elegant renderings, may these poems travel far and find love everywhere."—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Grace Notes"Besieged by death and destruction, the poet performs his eternal task; saying the unsayable. Rabah digs deep, finds these rivulets of tears, and gives them wings. Rescued poems that rescue us from our own silence, reminding us that poetry is a refuge in this cruel world. Elegantly translated in a labor of love and solidarity."—Sinan Antoon, author of Postcards from the Underworld"After reading this book, Adorno's famous dictum that writing poetry after a genocide could only be an act of barbarism comes off as lazy at best. Nasser Rabah's poems are alive with so much sadness, hallucinatory beauty, and harsh delight that it hurts to read them. But then everything is alive in these pages—clouds, trees, rivers, clothes, darkness, dreams, the night, language certainly, and poems without doubt.—Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine"Illuminating and lamenting the bewilderment of war and destruction, these poems expose what is shocking and what is banal: the dazzling presence of luck, bombed buildings which still stand, and 'beautiful doubt.' . . . Meanwhile, memories and old loves are forgotten in favor of surviving another day. While some may question how such grand scales of violence may be endured, Rabah carves space for the heart with an exquisite and excruciating attentiveness—even when it turns to stone, becomes 'a plaza of ash,' or 'flutters like a spinning coin.' The heart is present, always, everywhere, even destroyed, cold, and hardened; it works its way through the poet's fingers to write."—Liliana Torpey, Asymptote Journal"Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece offers a poetics grounded in immersion rather than escape. Rabah's language does not attempt to lift the reader above the devastation but walks directly through it, attuned to the textures of brokenness and breath—and of life."—Alaa Alqaisi, The Avery Review
